The Ethics of Manipulation

First published Fri Mar 30, 2018

Consider this case: Tonya plans to do Y, but Irving wants her
to do X instead. Irving has tried unsuccessfully to provide
Tonya with reasons for doing X rather than Y. If Irving
is unwilling to resort to coercion or force, he might deploy any of
the following tactics to try to influence Tonya’s choice. For
example, Irving might …

Charm Tonya into wanting to please Irving by doing
X.

Exaggerate the advantages of doing X and the
disadvantages of doing Y, and/or understate the disadvantages
of doing X and the advantages of doing Y.

Make Tonya feel guilty for preferring to do
Y.

Induce Tonya into an emotional state that makes
doing X seem more appropriate than it really is.

Point out that doing Y will make Tonya seem
less worthy and appealing to her friends.

Make Tonya feel badly about herself and portray
Y as a choice that will confirm or exacerbate this feeling,
and/or portray X as a choice that will disconfirm or combat
it.

Do a small favor for Tonya before asking her to do
X, so that she feels obligated to comply.

Make Tonya doubt her own judgment so that she will
rely on Irving’s advice to do X.

Make it clear to Tonya that if she does Y
rather than X, Irving will withdraw his friendship, sulk, or
become irritable and generally unpleasant.

Focus Tonya’s attention on some aspect of
doing Y that Tonya fears and ramp up that fear to get her to
change her mind about doing Y.

Each of these tactics could reasonably be called a form of manipulation.
Many also have more specific, commonplace names, such as “guilt
trip” (tactic 3), “gaslighting” (tactic 8),
“peer pressure” (tactic 5), “negging” (tactic
6), and “emotional blackmail” (tactic 9). Perhaps not
everyone will agree that every tactic on this list is
properly described as manipulation. And in some cases, whether the
tactic seems manipulative may depend on various details not specified
in the case as described. For example, if Y is seriously
immoral, then perhaps it is not manipulative for Irving to induce
Tonya to feel guilty about planning to do Y. It is also
possible that we might revise our judgments about some of these
tactics in light of a fully worked out and well supported theory of
manipulation—if we had one. Nevertheless, this list should
provide a reasonably good sense of what we mean by
“manipulation” in the present context. It should also
serve to illustrate the wide variety of tactics commonly described as
manipulation.

Manipulation is often characterized as a form of influence that is
neither coercion nor rational persuasion. But this characterization
immediately raises the question: Is every form of influence
that is neither coercion nor rational persuasion a form of
manipulation? If manipulation does not occupy the entire logical space
of influences that are neither rational persuasion nor coercion, then
what distinguishes it from other forms of influence that are neither
coercion nor rational persuasion?

The term “manipulation” is commonly thought to include an
element of moral disapprobation: To say that Irving manipulated Tonya
is commonly taken to be a moral criticism of Irving’s behavior.
Is manipulation always immoral? Why is manipulation immoral
(when it is immoral)? If manipulation is not always immoral, then what
determines when it is immoral?

1. Preliminaries

1.1 Ordinary versus Global Manipulation

Forms of influence like those listed above are commonplace in ordinary
life. This distinguishes them from forms of influence described as
“manipulation” in the free will literature. There, the
term “manipulation” typically refers to radical
programming or reprogramming of all or most of an agent’s
beliefs, desires, and other mental states. Such global manipulation
(as we might call it) is also typically imagined as happening via
decidedly extra-ordinary methods, such as supernatural intervention,
direct neurological engineering, or radical programs of indoctrination
and psychological conditioning. Global manipulation is typically
thought to deprive its victim of free will. This common intuition
drives the “manipulation argument”, which seeks to defend
incompatibilism by claiming that living in a deterministic universe is
analogous to having been the victim of global manipulation. (For a
detailed discussion of this argument, see the discussion of manipulation
arguments in the entry on
arguments for incompatibilism.)

Despite the differences between ordinary manipulation and the forms of
manipulation in the free will literature, it is still worth wondering
about the relationship between them. If global manipulation completely
deprives its victim of free will or autonomy, might more ordinary
forms of manipulation do something similar, but on a more limited
scale? If Tonya succumbs to one of Irving’s tactics, should we
regard her as being less free—and perhaps less
responsible—for doing X? So far, few people have explored
the connections between ordinary manipulation and the forms of global
manipulation discussed in the free will literature. (Two exceptions
are Long 2014 and Todd 2013).

1.2 Applications of a Theory of Ordinary Manipulation

Until recently, manipulation has seldom been the subject of
philosophical inquiry in its own right. However, the fact that
manipulation is commonly thought to undermine the validity of consent
has led to its frequent mention in areas where the validity of consent
is at issue.

One such area is medical ethics, where proposed conditions for
autonomous informed consent often reference the need to ensure that
consent is not manipulated. In fact, one of the earliest sustained
philosophical discussions of manipulation appears in Ruth Faden, Tom
Beauchamp, and Nancy King’s influential book, A History and
Theory of Informed Consent (1986). The view that manipulation
undermines the validity of consent is widely held among medical
ethicists. However, there is far less agreement about how to determine
whether a given form of influence is manipulative. Nowhere is this
lack of agreement more apparent than in recent discussions of
“nudges”.

The concept of a nudge was introduced by Cass Sunstein and Richard
Thaler to refer to the deliberate introduction of subtle, non-coercive
influences into people’s decision-making to get them to make
more optimal choices (Thaler & Sunstein 2009; Sunstein 2014). Some
nudges merely provide better and more comprehensible information;
these nudges seem best characterized as influences that improve the
quality of rational deliberation. But other nudges operate by
psychological mechanisms whose relationship to rational
deliberation is questionable at best. Many of these nudges exploit
heuristics, reasoning and decision-making biases, and other
psychological processes that operate outside of conscious awareness.
For example, some evidence suggests that patients are more likely to
choose an operation if they are told that it has a 90% survival rate
rather than a 10% fatality rate. Would it be manipulative for a
surgeon to exploit this framing effect to nudge the patient into
making the decision that the surgeon thinks best? Is it manipulative
for a cafeteria manager to place healthier food items at eye level to
nudge customers into choosing them? The question of whether and when
nudges manipulate has sparked a lively debate.

Some defenders of nudges suggest that because it is often impossible
to frame a decision without pointing the decision-maker in
some direction, there is nothing manipulative about framing
such decisions in one way rather than another. For example, physicians
must provide outcome information either in terms of fatality rate or
survival rate (and if they give both, they must give one first), and
cafeteria managers must choose something to put at eye level in the
displays. This being the case, why think that deliberately choosing
one way of framing the decision over another is manipulative? Some
defenders of nudges suggest that in cases where it is inevitable to
introduce a non-rational influence into decision-making, deliberately
doing so is not manipulative. But there are reasons to be wary of this
line of thought. Suppose that Jones is traveling to a job interview on
a subway car so crowded that it is inevitable that he will bump up
against his fellow passengers. Suppose that he capitalizes on this
fact to deliberately bump his rival job candidate (who is on the same
subway car) out the door just as it closes, thus ensuring that he will
be late for his interview. Clearly the fact that some bumping on
Jones’s part was inevitable does not excuse Jones’s
intentional bumping of his rival. Similarly, even if we inevitably
introduce non-rational influences into each other’s
decision-making, that fact seems insufficient to prove that such
influences can never be manipulative. No doubt this analogy is
imperfect, but it should suffice to call into question the assumption
that a deliberate nudge is not manipulative simply because some
nudging is inevitable.

More nuanced discussions of whether nudges manipulate tend to focus
less on the inevitability of nudging in some direction or another, and
more on the mechanisms by which the nudging occurs, and the direction
in which it pushes the person being nudged. Although there is wide
agreement that some nudges can be manipulative, so far no consensus
has emerged about which nudges are manipulative or how to distinguish
manipulative from non-manipulative nudges. (For a sample of approaches
to the question of whether and when nudges manipulate, see
Blumenthal-Barby 2012; Blumenthal-Barby & Burroughs 2012; Saghai
2013; Wilkinson 2013; Hanna 2015; Moles 2015; Nys & Engelen 2017;
and Noggle 2017. For arguments that nudges can be sometimes morally
justified even when they are manipulative, see Wilkinson 2017 and Nys
& Engelen 2017).

Questions about the legitimacy of nudges go beyond the medical
context. Thaler and Sunstein advocate their use by government,
employers, and other institutions besides the health care industry.
The use of nudges by government raises additional concerns, especially
about the paternalism behind them (Arneson 2015; White 2013).
Questions about other forms of manipulation in the political sphere
have also been raised by philosophers and political theorists. The
idea that political leaders might gain, retain, or consolidate
political power by means that we would now call manipulative can be
traced back at least as far back as ancient Greek figures like
Callicles and Thrasymachus. Niccolo Machiavelli not only details but
recommends political tactics that we would likely regard as
manipulative. More recent philosophical work on political manipulation
includes Robert Goodin’s 1980 book on Manipulatory
Politics and Claudia Mills’s important paper,
“Politics and Manipulation” (1995).

In the field of business ethics, much philosophical attention has been
focused on the question of whether advertising is manipulative. The
economist John Kenneth Galbraith famously called advertising
“the manipulation of consumer desire” and compared being
the target of advertising with being

assailed by demons which instilled in him a passion sometimes for silk
shirts, sometimes for kitchenware, sometimes for chamber pots, and
sometimes for orange squash. (Galbraith 1958)

Several philosophers have made similar criticisms of advertising.
Often, these criticisms are limited to forms of advertising that do
not simply convey accurate factual information. As is the case with
purely informational nudges, it seems difficult to claim that
advertising that does nothing more than convey accurate factual
information is manipulative. However, most advertising attempts to
influence consumer behavior by means other than or in addition to
purely providing accurate information. Such non-informational
advertising is the most apt target for worries about manipulation. Tom
Beauchamp and Roger Crisp have made influential arguments that such
advertising can be manipulative (Beauchamp 1984; Crisp 1987). Similar
criticisms claim that non-informational advertising can subvert
autonomy or improperly tamper with consumers’ desires (e.g.,
Santilli 1983). Such critiques are either versions of or close
relatives to critiques of advertising as manipulation. On the other
side, Robert Arrington argues that, as a matter of fact, advertising
very seldom manipulates its audience or undermines its
audience’s autonomy (Arrington 1982). Michael Phillips has
marshalled a large body of empirical evidence to argue that while some
advertising is manipulative, its critics vastly overestimate its power
to influence consumers (Phillips 1997).

1.3 Two Questions about Manipulation

As will be apparent from our discussion so far, two main questions
need to be answered about manipulation. A satisfactory theory of
manipulation should answer both of them.

One question—call it the identification
question—concerns definition and identification: How can we
identify which forms of influence are manipulative and which are not?
A satisfactory answer would presumably involve a general definition of
manipulation, which explains what the diverse forms of manipulative
influence have in common. In addition to illuminating how the various
instances of manipulation are manifestations of a single more basic
phenomenon, an answer to the identification question should also provide
criteria for determining whether a given instance of influence is
manipulative. Such an analysis might, of course, show that some of the
phenomena that we were pre-theoretically inclined to count as
manipulation are relevantly different from clear cases of
manipulation, so that we might be led to revise our usage of the term
“manipulation”, at least in contexts where precision is
important.

A second question—call it the evaluation
question—concerns morality: How should we evaluate the
moral status of manipulation? A satisfactory answer to this question
should tell us whether manipulation is always immoral. And if
manipulation is not always immoral, a satisfactory answer to the
evaluation question should tell us how to determine when manipulation
is immoral. But more importantly, a satisfactory answer to the
evaluation question should explain why manipulation is
immoral when it is immoral. What feature of manipulation makes it
immoral in those situations when it is immoral?

Although the identification and evaluation questions are distinct,
they are not entirely independent. Any analysis of why manipulation is
immoral (when it is immoral) will presuppose some account of what
manipulation is. Thus, our answer to the identification question will
constrain our answer to the evaluation question. But an answer to the
identification question might do more than constrain our
answer to the evaluation question: it might also guide it. If
an account of manipulation identifies its underlying characteristic as
being relevantly similar to some other thing that we have independent
grounds for regarding as morally wrong, then we would likely want to
argue that manipulation is wrong for similar reasons. Finally, we
might need to adjust our answers to one or both questions if they
together imply implausible consequences. For example, if we define
manipulation as every form of influence besides rational persuasion or
coercion, and then claim that the wrongness of manipulation is
absolute, we will be forced to conclude that no form of influence
besides rational persuasion is ever morally legitimate. This is a
radical conclusion that few would be willing to accept, but it is a
conclusion that results from combining a certain answer to the
identification question with a certain answer to the evaluation
question.

2. Answering the Identification Question

Currently, there are three main characterizations of manipulation on
offer in the literature: One treats manipulation as an influence that
undermines or bypasses rational deliberation. A second treats it as a
form of pressure. A third treats it as a form of trickery.

2.1 Manipulation as Bypassing Reason

Manipulation is often said to “bypass”,
“undermine”, or “subvert” the target’s
rational deliberation. It is not always clear, however, whether this
claim is meant as a definition of manipulation or merely as a
statement about manipulation (perhaps one that partly explains its
moral status). But let us consider whether the idea that manipulation
bypasses reason can serve as a definition of manipulation.

The thought that manipulative influences bypass the target’s
capacity for rational deliberation is appealing for at least two
reasons. First, it seems reasonable to think that because manipulation
differs from rational persuasion, it must influence behavior by means
that do not engage the target’s rational capacities. Second, it
seems intuitive to describe forms of influence that do clearly bypass the
target’s capacity for rational deliberation as manipulative. For
example, suppose that subliminal advertising worked in the way that it
is commonly—though probably inaccurately—portrayed, so
that being exposed to a subliminal message urging you to “Drink
Coke” could influence your behavior without engaging your
mechanisms of rational deliberation. Intuitively such an influence
would seem to be a clear case of manipulation.

Subliminal advertising tactics—along with hypnosis and
behavioral conditioning—are commonly portrayed as effective
methods to influence others without their knowledge and thus without
engaging their capacities for rational deliberation. The effectiveness
of such tactics is almost certainly wildly exaggerated in the popular
(and sometimes philosophical) imagination. However, but if we imagine
them working as well as they are sometimes portrayed, then they would
constitute clear examples of what it might mean to say that
manipulation bypasses reason. Thus, we might understand manipulation
in terms of bypassing rational deliberation, and understand
“bypassing rational deliberation” in terms of exploiting
psychological mechanisms or techniques that can generate behavior
without any input from rational deliberation.

However, this approach faces a serious problem. If we define
manipulation in terms of bypassing rational deliberation, and then use
exaggerated portrayals of hypnosis and subliminal advertising to
illustrate what it means to bypass rational deliberation, we will set
a very high bar for something to count as manipulation. This bar would
be too high to count any of Irving’s tactics as manipulation,
since none of them completely bypasses Tonya’s capacity for
rational deliberation in the way that subliminal advertising,
hypnosis, or conditioning are commonly portrayed as doing. In fact, as
Moti Gorin observes, manipulation often involves tactics that rely
on the rational capacities of the target (Gorin 2014a). This is
certainly true of the tactics that Irving uses to influence Tonya in
the examples above: they all seem better described as ways of
influencing Tonya’s deliberation than bypassing it.

Perhaps we might characterize manipulation not in terms of bypassing
deliberation altogether, but in terms of bypassing rational
deliberation, that is, by introducing non-rational influences into the
deliberative process. Thus, we might follow Joseph Raz in claiming
that

manipulation, unlike coercion, does not interfere with a
person’s options. Instead it perverts the way that person
reaches decisions, forms preference, or adopts goals. (Raz 1988: 377)

Treating manipulation as bypassing rational deliberation, and
then characterizing “bypassing rational deliberation” in
terms of introducing non-rational influences into deliberation, would
cohere nicely with the observation that manipulation is a contrary of
rational persuasion. Moreover, characterizing “bypassing
rational deliberation” in this way would lower the bar for an
influence to count as manipulative.

However, now we should worry about the bar being set too low. For many
forms of non-rational influence do not seem to be manipulative. For
example, graphic portrayals of the dangers of smoking or texting while
driving are not obviously manipulative even when they impart no new
information to the target (Blumenthal-Barby 2012). In addition, moral
persuasion often involves non-rational influence. Appeals to the
Golden Rule invite the interlocutor to imagine how it would
feel to be on the receiving end of the action under
consideration. It is difficult to believe that all such appeals are
inherently manipulative, even when they appeal more to the feelings
than to facts (of which the interlocutor may already be aware).
Finally, consider something as innocuous as dressing up before going
on a date or an interview. Presumably, the purpose of such
“impression management” is to convey a certain impression
to the audience. Yet dressing up on a single occasion provides little
if any rational basis for conclusions about what the
well-dressed person is really like day in and day out. Thus,
impression management of this sort seems to be an attempt at
non-rational influence. Yet it seems odd to count it as
manipulation—especially if we treat “manipulation”
as having a connotation of being immoral. Of course, we might avoid
this problem by defining “manipulation” in a morally
neutral way, and then claiming that these forms of manipulation are
not immoral, while others are. But this would merely move the problem
without solving it, for now we would want to know what distinguishes
immoral forms of manipulation from those that are not immoral.

Perhaps we could address this problem by defining reason more broadly,
so that appeals to emotions could count as forms of rational
persuasion. Such a move might be independently motivated by the
rejection of what some critics regard as the hyper-cognitivist radical
separation of reason from emotion. However, it is not clear that
allowing emotional appeals to count as rational persuasion will get us
very far in defining manipulation in terms of bypassing reason. For
while we will have avoided the implausible implication that all
appeals to emotion are ipso facto manipulative, we now face the
question of which appeals to emotion are manipulative and which are
not. And that is close to the very question that the idea of bypassing
reason was supposed to help us answer.

Thus, despite the plausibility of the claim that manipulation bypasses
the target’s capacities for rational deliberation, using this
claim to define manipulation faces serious challenges: If we
take “bypassing” very literally, then the account seems to
miss many examples of genuine manipulation. But if we loosen our
understanding of “bypassing reason” so that it applies to
any non-rational form of influence, then it seems to count as
manipulative many forms of influence that do not seem manipulative.
And if we fix that problem by adopting a conception of reason
according to which appeals to the emotions are not ipso facto
non-rational, then we are left with the original problem of
determining which appeals to the emotions are manipulative and which
are not. Perhaps there is a way to characterize “bypassing
reason” that can undergird a plausible definition of
manipulation in terms of bypassing reason. But the most obvious ways
to define “bypassing reason” appear to be dead ends, and
no other suggestions are currently on offer.

Nevertheless, even if defining manipulation in terms of bypassing
reason turns out to be a dead end, it is still possible that
manipulation really does bypass reason in some sense. But it
may turn out that we need an independent definition of manipulation
before we can determine in what sense manipulation bypasses
reason. Some writers, such as Cass Sunstein and Jason Hanna, seem to
have such an approach in mind when they initially characterize
manipulation in terms of bypassing or subverting reason, but then go
on to gloss “bypassing or subverting” in terms of some
other account of manipulation (Sunstein 2016: 82–89; Hanna
2015).

However, a recent argument by Moti Gorin raises questions for the
claim that manipulation bypasses or subverts reason—even when
that claim is not being used to define what manipulation is (Gorin
2014a). Gorin argues that manipulation can occur even when the target
is offered only good reasons. His argument turns largely on examples
like this: James wishes for Jacques’s death, since this would
enable James to inherit a large fortune. James knows that Jacques
believes that (1) God exists, and that (2) if God did not exist, life
would be meaningless, and he would have no reason to go on living.
James provides Jacques with rational arguments against the existence
of God. These arguments fully engage Jacques’s rational
faculties, and consequently Jacques concludes that God does not exist.
Jacques promptly commits suicide—just as Jack had hoped he
would. As Gorin notes, James’s activities do not appear to have
bypassed, subverted, or otherwise been detrimental to Jacques’s
capacity for reason—indeed, James depended on Jacques’s
ability to employ his rational faculties to draw (what James regarded
as) the correct conclusion from his arguments. If we accept
Gorin’s characterization of James’s actions as
manipulative, then his example poses a significant challenge to the
claim that manipulation always bypasses the target’s capacity
for rational deliberation.

2.2 Manipulation as Trickery

A second approach to manipulation treats it as a form of trickery, and
ties it conceptually to deception. The connection between manipulation
and deception is a common theme in both non-philosophical and
philosophical discussions of manipulation. In the literature on
advertising, for example, the charge that (at least some) advertising
is manipulative often rests on the claim that it creates false beliefs
or misleading associations (e.g., linking the vitality of the Marlboro
man to a product which causes lung cancer). Similarly, in his
discussion of promises, T. M. Scanlon condemns manipulation as a means
of inducing false beliefs and expectations (Scanlon 1998:
298–322). Shlomo Cohen offers a somewhat different account of
the relationship between manipulation, according to which the
distinction lies in the methods by which the target is induced to
adopt a false belief (Cohen forthcoming). But even on this more
nuanced view, there is still a strong connection between manipulation
and deception.

Although some versions of the trickery view simply treat manipulation
as being like deception in that both induce false beliefs and leave it
at that, more expansive versions of the view treat manipulation as a
much broader category of which deception is a special case. Whereas
deception is the deliberate attempt to trick someone into adopting a
faulty belief, more expansive versions of the trickery account see
manipulation as the deliberate attempt to trick someone into adopting
any faulty mental state—belief, desire, emotion, etc.

An early example of this more expansive trickery-based approach to
manipulation can be found in a 1980 paper by Vance Kasten, who writes
that

manipulation occurs when there is a difference in kind between what
one intends to do and what one actually does, when that difference is
traceable to another in such a way that the victim may be said to have
been misled. (Kasten 1980: 54)

Although many of Kasten’s examples of misleading involve some
form of deception, he includes examples in which manipulation involves
inducing the target to have inappropriate emotions like guilt. More
recently, Robert Noggle has defended a version of this more expansive
approach, writing that

There are certain norms or ideals that govern beliefs, desires, and
emotions. Manipulative action is the attempt to get someone’s
beliefs, desires, or emotions to violate these norms, to fall short of
these ideals. (Noggle 1996: 44)

In a similar vein, Anne Barnhill writes that

manipulation is directly influencing someone’s beliefs, desires,
or emotions such that she falls short of ideals for belief, desire, or
emotion in ways typically not in her self-interest or likely not
in her self-interest in the present context. (Barnhill 2014: 73,
emphasis original; for a similar view, see Hanna 2015)

Claudia Mills offers a theory that can be considered as either a
version of, or a close relative to, the trickery account:

We might say, then, that manipulation in some way purports to be
offering good reasons, when in fact it does not. A manipulator tries
to change another’s beliefs and desires by offering her bad
reasons, disguised as good, or faulty arguments, disguised as
sound—where the manipulator himself knows these to be bad
reasons and faulty arguments (Mills 1995: 100; see Benn 1967 and Gorin
2014b for somewhat similar ideas).

This more expansive version of the trickery view retains the
connection between manipulation and deception but extends it to
characterize manipulation as inducing—tricking—the target
into adopting any faulty mental state, including beliefs, but also
desires, emotions, etc. This view might be further expanded by
adopting Michael Cholbi’s observation that the phenomenon of ego
depletion might induce targets of manipulation to form faulty
intentions (that is, intentions that do not reflect their considered
values) because their resistance to temptation has been worn down
(Cholbi 2014).

The trickery view can be motivated by appeal to various examples, one
especially fruitful set of which is Shakespeare’s
Othello. It seems natural to describe Shakespeare’s
character Iago as a manipulator. The activities in virtue of which he
merits this label seem to involve various forms of trickery. For
example, through insinuation, innuendo and cleverly arranging
circumstances (like a strategically placed handkerchief) he tricks
Othello into suspecting—and then believing—that his new
bride Desdemona has been unfaithful. He then plays on Othello’s
insecurities and other emotions to lead him into an irrational
jealousy and rage that both overshadow his love for Desdemona and
cloud his judgment about how to react. The trickery view accounts for
our sense that Iago manipulates Othello by noting that Iago tricks him
into adopting various faulty mental states—false beliefs,
unwarranted suspicions, irrational emotions, and so on. The fact that
the trickery view explains our sense that Iago manipulates Othello is
a key consideration in its favor.

Proponents of the trickery view differ over several of details, most
notably on how to define a faulty mental state. Some
proponents of the trickery view argue that manipulation occurs when
the influencer attempts to induce what the influencer regards
as a faulty mental state into the target’s deliberations
(Mills 1995; Noggle 1996). By contrast, Jason Hanna argues that we
should define manipulation in terms of the attempt to introduce an
objectively faulty mental state into the target’s
deliberations (Hanna 2015: 634; see also Sunstein 2016: 89). Anne
Barnhill defends a trickery account of manipulation, but suggests that
our usage of the term “manipulation” is inconsistent on
the question of whose standards determine whether the influencer
attempts to induce the target to adopt a faulty mental state (Barnhill
2014).

Although the trickery account has considerable appeal, it faces an
important challenge: It apparently fails to count as manipulative a
whole class of tactics that seem, intuitively, to be
manipulative. Tactics like charm, peer pressure, and emotional
blackmail (tactics 1, 5, and 9) do not seem to involve trickery. Yet
it seems quite natural to think of such tactics as forms of
manipulation.

2.3 Manipulation as Pressure

A third way to characterize manipulation is to treat it as a kind of
pressure to do as the influencer wishes. On this account, tactics like
emotional blackmail and peer pressure are paradigm cases of
manipulation, since they exert pressure on the target by imposing
costs for failing to do what the manipulator wishes. One rationale for
treating manipulation as a form of pressure is the observation that
manipulation is neither rational persuasion nor coercion. It seems
plausible, then, to suppose that there is a continuum between rational
persuasion and coercion with regard to the level of pressure being
exerted, with rational persuasion exerting no pressure, coercion
exerting maximum pressure, and the middle region, manipulation,
exerting pressure that falls short of being coercive. In this way, we
might arrive at the idea that manipulation is a form of pressure that
does not rise to the level of coercion.

One of the earliest philosophical accounts of manipulation, by Ruth
Faden, Tom Beauchamp, and Nancy King, has this structure. They begin
by contrasting using rational persuasion to convince a patient to take
a medically necessary drug with simply coercing him to take it. Then
they observe that

There are many in-between cases: For example, suppose the physician
has made clear that he or she will be upset with the patient if the
patient does not take the drug, and the patient is intimidated.
Although the patient is not convinced that it is the best course to
take the medication, … the patient agrees to take the drug
because it appears that acceptance will foster a better relationship
with the doctor… Here the patient performs the action …
under a heavy measure of control by the physician’s
role, authority, and indeed prescription. Unlike the first case, the
patient does not find it overwhelmingly difficult to resist the
physician’s proposal, but, unlike the second case, it is
nonetheless awkward and difficult to resist this rather
“controlling” physician. (Faden, Beauchamp, & King
1986: 258)

They claim that such “in between” cases constitute
manipulation. However, they do not claim that all forms of
manipulation fall into the middle region of this continuum; they also
count forms of deception, indoctrination, and seduction as
manipulative, and claim that

some manipulative strategies can be as controlling as coercion or as
noncontrolling as persuasion; other manipulations fall somewhere
between these endpoints. (Faden, Beauchamp, & King 1986: 259)

Nevertheless, the idea that at least some forms of manipulation
involve pressure has been very influential.

Joel Feinberg offers a similar account of manipulation. He writes that
many techniques for getting someone to act in a certain way

can be placed on a spectrum of force running from compulsion proper,
at one extreme, through compulsive pressure, coercion proper, and
coercive pressure, to manipulation, persuasion, enticement, and simple
requests at the other extreme. The line between forcing to act and
merely getting to act is drawn somewhere in the manipulation or
persuasion part of the scale. (Feinberg 1989: 189)

Michael Kligman and Charles Culver offer a similar account:

The attempt to influence B’s behavior takes on a
manipulative character when … A’s primary intent
is no longer to convince B, in a good faith manner, that acting
as desired by A would be in keeping with B’s
rational assessments of outcome; [but rather] to procure or engineer
the needed assent by bringing pressure to bear, in a deliberate and
calculated way, on what he presume to be the manipulable features of
B’s motivational system. (Kligman & Culver 1992:
186–187)

Kligman and Culver go on to distinguish this manipulative pressure
from coercion by claiming that the latter, unlike the former, involves
“sufficiently strong incentives … that it would be
unreasonable to expect any rational person not to so act”
(Kligman & Culver 1992: 187). More recently, Marcia Baron and
Allen Wood have also discussed forms of manipulation that seem best
characterized as forms of pressure (Baron 2003; Wood 2014).

Although we can treat the idea that manipulation consists of a form of
pressure as a full-fledged theory of manipulation, most of the authors
just cited hold only that some forms of manipulation consist of
pressure. In particular, most agree with Faden, Beauchamp, and King,
that other forms of manipulation are more akin to deception. Thus, it
is somewhat artificial to speak of the pressure model as a theory
meant to cover all forms of manipulation. It is more accurate to
regard the pressure model as claiming that exerting non-coercive
pressure is sufficient (but perhaps not necessary) for an influence to
count as manipulative.

2.4 Disjunctive, Hybrid, and Other Views

Our discussion of the trickery and pressure accounts highlights a
rather striking fact: If we survey the tactics that seem intuitively
to be examples of manipulation, we find tactics that seem best
described as forms of trickery as well as tactics that seem best
described as forms of pressure. This is puzzling, since, on the face
of it, trickery and pressure seem rather dissimilar. What should we
make of the fact that we use the same
concept—manipulation—to refer to methods of influence that
seem to operate by such dissimilar mechanisms?

Several responses are possible. First, it is possible that the common
usage of term “manipulation” refers to such a diverse set
of phenomena that no single analysis will capture every form of
influence to which the term is commonly applied. Felicia Ackerman
argues that the term “manipulation” exhibits
“combinatorial vagueness”: while it is connected to
features like inhibition of rational deliberation, unethicalness,
deceptiveness, playing upon non-rational impulses, shrewdness,
pressure, etc., “no condition on the list is sufficient,
… and no single condition … is even necessary” for
an instance of influence to be manipulative (Ackerman 1995:
337–38).

Second, we might hold that the concept of manipulation is not vague
but rather disjunctive, so that manipulation consists of
either trickery or pressure. Indeed, in one of the
earliest philosophical analyses of manipulation, Joel Rudinow takes
this approach. Rudinow begins with the following thesis:

A attempts to manipulate S iff A attempts to
influence S’s behavior by means of deception or pressure
or by playing on a supposed weakness of S. (Rudinow 1978: 343)

He goes on to claim that that the use of pressure is manipulative only
if the would-be manipulator directs it at some supposed weakness in
his target that will render the target unable to resist it; this leads
him to finalize his definition in terms of “deception or by
playing upon a supposed weakness” of the target, with the second
disjunct meant to cover pressure-based tactics (Rudinow 1978: 346).
Several other philosophers have followed Rudinow’s disjunctive
approach to defining manipulation (Tomlinson 1986; Sher 2011; Mandava
& Millum 2013).

A somewhat different version of the disjunctive strategy might begin
with the pressure account’s continuum pressure of between
rational persuasion and coercion, but go on to add a second dimension
consisting of a continuum between rational persuasion and outright
lying. We might then define manipulation in terms of a two-dimensional
space bounded by rational persuasion, outright lying, and coercion. A
strategy like this is suggested by Sapir Handelman, although he adds a
third dimension that measures the level of “control” that
a given form of influence exerts (Handelman 2009).

Disjunctive strategies that combine the trickery and pressure accounts
are appealing because they seem to do a better job than either the
trickery or pressure account alone in accounting for the wide variety
of tactics that seem intuitively to count as manipulation. However,
this wider coverage comes a price. If the disjunctive approach simply
puts an “or” between the trickery and pressure accounts,
then it will leave unanswered the question of what, if anything, makes
all forms of manipulation manifestations of the same phenomenon. Of
course, it is possible that this question cannot be answered because,
as a matter of fact, there are two irreducibly different forms of
manipulation. But this seems like a conclusion that we should accept
only reluctantly, after having made a good faith effort to determine
whether there really is anything in common between pressure-based
manipulation and trickery-based manipulation.

One possible answer to this challenge might be drawn from Marcia
Baron’s important paper on “Manipulativeness”, which
diagnoses the underlying moral wrong in manipulation in terms of an
Aristotelian vice. She suggests treating manipulativeness as the vice
of excess with regard to “to what extent—and how and when
and to whom and for what sorts of ends—to seek to influence
others’ conduct” (Baron 2003: 48). On her view,
manipulativeness is at the opposite extreme from the vice of

refraining from offering potentially helpful counsel; or refraining
from trying to stop someone from doing something very dangerous, for
example, from driving home from one’s house while drunk. (Baron
2003: 48)

Perhaps, then, we can understand the underlying similarity between
trickery- and pressure-based manipulation as manifestations of a
common vice, as different ways of going wrong with regard to how and
how much we should try to influence those around us.

Finally, it is worth noting two other approaches to defining
manipulation. Patricia Greenspan suggests that manipulation is a sort
of hybrid between coercion and deception. She writes that

cases of manipulation seem to have a foot in both of the usual
categories of intentional interference with another agent’s
autonomy, coercion and deception, but partly as a result, they do not
fit squarely in either category. (Greenspan 2003: 157)

Thus, we might characterize her view as a “conjunctive”
theory of manipulation, according to which it contains elements of
both pressure and deception. It certainly seems true
that manipulators often use both pressure and deception. For example,
a manipulator who employs peer pressure might also exaggerate the
extent to which the target’s peers will disapprove of her if she
chooses the option that the manipulator wants her not to choose.
However, we can also point to relatively pure cases of manipulative
pressure or manipulative trickery: Indeed, all of the items on the
list above can be imagined as involving either pure pressure or pure
trickery. The apparent existence of cases of manipulation that involve
only deception or only pressure seems to be a problem for
Greenspan’s hybrid view.

Eric Cave defends a theory of what he calls “motive
manipulation” (Cave 2007, 2014). Cave’s approach rests on
a distinction between “concerns”, which are motives that
consist of the agent’s conscious pro-attitudes toward some action
or state of affairs, and “non-concern motives” which are
motives that are not also concerns (i.e., they are not also conscious
pro-attitudes). This distinction in hand, Cave defines motive manipulation as any form of
influence that operates by engaging non-concern motives. This theory
clearly implies that appeals to non-conscious motives, and as well
influences that operate via “quasi-hypnotic techniques”
and “crude behavioral conditioning” are manipulative (Cave
2014: 188). But it is not clear what Cave’s theory would say
about appeals to consciously-experienced emotions or pressure tactics
like peer pressor or emotional blackmail. This is because the
distinction between a concern and a non-concern motive—which is
a crucial part of the theory—seems under-described. Are such
things as my fear of failure or my desire to retain your friendship
concerns? Without a fuller account of the crucial distinction between
concerns and non-concern motives, it is difficult to say whether
Cave’s theory provides a plausible answer to the identification
question.

3. Answering the Evaluation Question

A complete answer to the evaluation question should tell us about the
sort of wrongfulness that manipulation possesses: Is it absolutely
immoral, pro tanto immoral, prima facie immoral,
etc.? It should also tell us when manipulation is immoral if it is not
always immoral. Finally, a satisfactory answer to the evaluation
question should tell us what makes manipulation immoral in cases where
it is immoral.

3.1 Is Manipulation Always Wrong?

Suppose that Tonya is a captured terrorist who has hidden a bomb in
the city and that her preferred course of action is to keep its
location secret until it to explodes. And suppose that Irving is an
FBI interrogator who wants Tonya to reveal the bomb’s location
before it explodes. How would this way filling in the details of the
case change our moral assessment of the various ways that Irving might
induce Tonya to change her mind?

One rather extreme answer would be: “not at all”. This
hardline view would hold that manipulation is always morally wrong, no
matter what the consequences. Inasmuch as this hardline view resembles
Kant’s notorious hardline position that lying is always wrong,
one might look to Kant’s ethics for considerations to support
it. But just as hardly anyone accepts Kant’s hardline position
against lying, the hardline view against manipulation also seems short
on defenders.

A less extreme position would be that while manipulation is always
pro tanto wrong, other moral considerations can sometimes
outweigh the pro tanto wrongness of manipulation. Thus, we
might think that manipulation is always wrong to some extent, but that
countervailing moral factors might sometimes suffice to make
manipulation justified on balance. What might such factors include?
One obvious candidate would be consequences—for example, the
fact that Irving’s successful manipulation of Tonya would save
many innocent lives. Non-consequentialist factors might also be
thought to be countervailing considerations: Perhaps the immorality of
Tonya's character, or the fact that she is acting on an evil desire or
intention, is a countervailing factor that can outweigh the pro
tanto wrongness of Irving's manipulation. It is important to note that, on
this view, the fact that an action involves manipulation is always a
moral reason to avoid it, even if stronger countervailing
considerations render it not wrong on balance. For example, even if
Irving’s manipulation of Terrorist Tonya is not wrong on balance
(e.g., because of the innocent lives that will be saved), if Irving can get
Tonya to reveal the bomb’s location without manipulation (or
anything else that is comparably immoral), then it would be morally
better to avoid manipulating her.

By contrast, we might hold that manipulation is merely prima
facie immoral. On this view, there is a presumption that
manipulation is immoral, but this presumption can be defeated in some
situations. When the presumption is defeated, manipulation is
not wrong at all (i.e., not even pro tanto wrong). On this
view, we might say that while manipulation is usually wrong, it is not
wrong at all in the terrorist scenario. On this view, not only is
Irving’s manipulation of Terrorist Tonya not wrong on balance,
but there is not even any moral reason for him to choose a
non-manipulative method of getting Tonya to reveal the bomb’s
location if one is available.

A more complex—but, perhaps, ultimately more
plausible—view would combine the prima facie and
pro tanto approaches. Such a view would hold that
manipulation is prima facie immoral, but that when it is
wrong, the wrongness is pro tanto rather than absolute. On
this view, there are situations in which the presumption against
manipulation is defeated and manipulation is not even pro
tanto wrong. Perhaps bluffing in poker is like this. But where
the presumption is not defeated, the wrongness of manipulation is only
pro tanto, and thus able to be outweighed by sufficiently
weighty countervailing moral considerations. In such cases, even if it
is not wrong on balance to manipulate, it would still be morally
preferable to avoid manipulation in favor of some other, morally
legitimate, form of influence. Manipulating a friend into refraining
from sending a text to rekindle an abusive relationship might be an
example where the pro tanto wrongness of manipulation is
outweighed by other considerations. In such a case, it seems plausible
to maintain that it would be morally preferable to use reason rather
than manipulation to get one’s friend to see that sending the
text would be a mistake, even if the facts of the situation would
justify resorting to manipulation. A view along these lines has been
defended by Marcia Baron (2014: 116–17). Although this view is
far less absolute than the hardline view, it retains the claim that
manipulation is prima facie wrong, so that there is always a
presumption that it is immoral, though this presumption is sometimes
defeated. It is also compatible with the idea that the term
“manipulation” has built into it a connotation of moral
dis-approbation.

However, the claim that manipulation is presumptively wrong might be
challenged. One might argue that “manipulation” is, or at
least should be, a morally neutral term without even the presumption
of immorality. On this view, whether a given instance of manipulation
is immoral will always depend on the facts of the situation, and the
term itself includes (or should include) no presumption one way or the
other. Clearly there are non-moralized notions of manipulation. When
we speak of a scientist manipulating variables in an experiment, or a
pilot manipulating the plane’s controls, our use of the term is
devoid of any hint of moral opprobrium. In the social sciences, we can
find cases of the term “manipulation” being used in a
morally neutral way even when another person is the target of
manipulation. For example, several papers by the evolutionary
psychologist David M. Buss and colleagues use the term
“manipulation” more or less as a synonym for
“influence” in their discussions of how humans influence
the behavior of other humans (D.M. Buss 1992; D.M. Buss et al. 1987).
Of course, pointing out morally neutral usages of
“manipulation” does not really settle the question of
whether we should prefer a moralized or a non-moralized notion of
manipulation. An argument for preferring a non-moralized notion of
manipulation is provided by Allen Wood, who writes that

If we think that moral argument should proceed not merely by invoking
our pro- or con- sentiments, or appealing to our unargued intuitions,
but instead by identifying objective facts about a situation that give
us good reasons for condemning or approving certain things, then we
would generally do much better to use a non-moralized sense of words
like “coercion”, “manipulation”, and
“exploitation”—a sense in which these words can be
used to refer to such objective facts. (Wood 2014: 19–20)

No matter how we answer the question of whether manipulation in
general is absolutely immoral, prima facie immoral, pro
tanto immoral, or not even presumptively immoral, there are
clearly situations in which manipulation is immoral. Any complete
answer to the evaluation question must explain why manipulation is
immoral in those cases where it is immoral. In addition, any view that
holds that manipulation is only pro tanto and/or prima
facie immoral should tell us what sorts of considerations can
defeat the presumption that it is immoral and/or outweigh its pro
tanto immorality. Several accounts have been offered to identify
the source of the moral wrongfulness of manipulation (when it is
wrong).

3.2 Manipulation and Harm

Perhaps the most straightforward way to explain the wrongfulness of
manipulation (when it is wrong) points to the harm done to its
targets. Manipulation is commonly used aggressively, as a way to harm
the manipulator’s target, or at least to benefit the manipulator
at the target’s expense. The harmfulness of manipulation seems
especially salient in manipulative relationships, where manipulation
may lead to subordination and even abuse. The more minor economic harm
of the extraction of money from consumers is often pointed to as a
wrong-making feature of manipulative advertising, and there has been
some discussion of how manipulation might lead targets to enter into
exploitative contracts. Systematic political manipulation may weaken
democratic institutions and perhaps even lead to tyranny.

It is commonly held that harmfulness is always a wrong-making
feature—though perhaps one that is only prima facie or
pro tanto. Thus, it seems reasonable to think that instances
of manipulation that harm their victims are, for that reason, at least
pro tanto or prima facie immoral. But not all
instances of manipulation harm their victims. In fact, manipulation
sometimes benefits its target. If the harm to the victim is the only
wrong-making feature of manipulation, then paternalistic or beneficent
manipulation could never be even pro tanto wrong. But this
claim strikes most people as implausible. To see this, consider that
the debate about whether paternalistic nudges are wrongfully
manipulative is not settled simply by pointing out that they benefit
their targets. The fact that it seems possible for an act to be
wrongfully manipulative, even though it benefits (and is intended to
benefit) the target, presumably explains why there are few, if any,
defenses of the claim that manipulation is wrong only when
and because it harms the target. Nevertheless, it seems plausible to
hold that when manipulation does harm its target, this harm adds to
the wrongness of the manipulative behavior.

3.3 Manipulation and Autonomy

Perhaps the most common account of the wrongness of manipulation
claims that it violates, undermines, or is otherwise antithetical to
the target’s personal autonomy. The reason for this is easy to
see: Manipulation, by definition, influences decision-making by means
that—unlike rational persuasion—are not clearly
autonomy-preserving. Thus, it is natural to regard it as interfering
with autonomous decision-making. The idea that manipulation is wrong
because it undermines autonomous choice is implicit in discussions of
manipulation as a potential invalidator of consent. Indeed, the
assumption that manipulation undermines autonomy is so common in
discussions of manipulation and consent that it would be difficult to
cite a paper on that topic that does not at least implicitly treat
manipulation as undermining autonomous choice. But even outside of
discussions of autonomous consent, the claim that manipulation is
immoral because it undermines autonomy commonly made (and perhaps even
more commonly assumed).

However, there are reasons for caution about tying the moral status of
manipulation too tightly to its effects on autonomy. One can imagine
cases where it is not obvious that manipulation undermines autonomy.
One can even imagine cases where a manipulative act might enhance the
target’s overall autonomy. For example, a teacher might
manipulate a student into taking a course of study which ultimately
enhances her autonomy by opening new career options, improving her
skills of critical self-reflection, etc. We might also imagine cases
where manipulation is used to support the target’s autonomous
choice. Suppose that Tonya has autonomously decided to leave an
abusive partner, but that she is now tempted to go back. If Irving
resorts to a manipulative tactic designed to nudge her away from
backsliding on her autonomous choice to leave her abuser, then his
action might seem less like undermining Tonya’s autonomy and
more like reinforcing it.

One might respond that these examples do not undermine the claim that
manipulation is wrong when and because it undermines autonomy because
these autonomy-enhancing instances of manipulation are not wrong.
However, this response faces a complication: Consider the case where
Irving manipulates Tonya into resisting the temptation to backslide on
her resolution to leave her abusive partner. It seems plausible to say
that Irving's manipulation in this case is not wrong on balance. But
it also seems plausible to say that it was nevertheless pro tanto
wrong since it seems plausible to think that it would have been
morally preferable for Irving to find some other way to help Tonya
avoid backsliding. But even the claim that Irving's autonomy-enhancing
manipulation is merely pro tanto wrong seems inconsistent with the
claim that manipulation is wrong when and because it undermines
autonomy. Of course, it is open to defenders of the autonomy account
of the wrongness of manipulation to bite the bullet here and deny that
autonomy-enhancing manipulation is even pro tanto immoral.

Alternatively—and perhaps more plausibly—the defender of
the autonomy account of the wrongness of manipulation might concede
that Irving’s autonomy-enhancing manipulation of Tonya is pro
tanto wrong. But she might explain this by claiming that while the
manipulation is autonomy-enhancing overall, it nevertheless undermines
Tonya’s autonomy in the short term. The fact that Irving’s
manipulation undermines Tonya’s autonomy temporarily explains
why it is pro tanto immoral—and why it would be morally better
for Irving to find a non-manipulative way to help Tonya avoid
backsliding. But the fact that the manipulation enhances Tonya’s
autonomy overall explains why it is not immoral on balance. Of course,
this strategy will not appeal to those who hold that it is wrong to
undermine a person’s autonomy even when doing so enhances that
same person’s overall autonomy.

A more significant threat to the link between manipulation and
autonomy appears in an influential paper by Sarah Buss. She argues
that “when we are obligated to refrain from manipulation or
deceiving one another, this has relatively little to do with the value
of autonomy” (S. Buss 2005: 208). Buss’s argument has two
parts. First, she claims that manipulation does not, in fact, deprive
its victim of the ability to make choices; indeed, it typically
presupposes that the target will make her own choice. But if the
manipulation does not take away the target’s choice, Buss
maintains, it does not undermine her autonomy. (For a similar
argument, see Long 2014). Second, Buss argues that it is false to
claim that an autonomous agent would rationally reject being subjected
to manipulative influences. To support this claim, Buss argues that
manipulation and deception are “pervasive forms of human
interaction which are often quite benign and even valuable” (S.
Buss 2005: 224). Her most notable example is the cultivation of
romantic love, which often involves—and may even
require—significant amounts of behavior that is aptly described
as manipulation.

Defenders of the link between autonomy and the wrongness of
manipulation are not without potential replies to Buss’s
intriguing argument. For one thing, it seems possible to craft a
notion of autonomy according to which having false information (or
other faulty mental states) or being subjected to pressure (even when
it does not rise to the level of coercion) compromise a person’s
autonomy. Even though false beliefs about how to achieve one’s
ends may not compromise one’s authentic values or one’s
powers of practical reasoning, they do seem to compromise one’s
ability to achieve one’s autonomously-chosen ends, and it is
plausible to regard this as a diminishment of (some form of) autonomy.
Moreover, the defender of the link between autonomy and the wrongness
of manipulation might simply deny that the forms of manipulation to
which an autonomous agent would consent (for example, those required
by romantic love) are wrongful cases of manipulation.

3.4 Manipulation and Treating Persons as Things

Several accounts of manipulation tie its moral status to the fact that
it influences behavior by methods that seem analogous to how one might
operate a tool or a device. On this view, manipulation involves
treating the target as a device to be operated rather than an agent to
be reasoned with. As Claudia Mills puts it,

a manipulator is interested in reasons not as logical justifiers but
as causal levers. For the manipulator, reasons are tools, and bad
reasons can work as well as, or better than, a good one. (Mills 1995:
100–101)

The point here is that a manipulator treats his target not as a fellow
rational agent, for that would require giving good reasons for doing
as the manipulator proposes. Instead, the manipulator treats his
target as a being whose behavior is to be elicited by pressing the
most effective “causal levers”.

Of course, the idea that treating a person as a mere object is immoral
is a prominent feature of Kant’s account of respect for persons
(see entry on
respect).
Thus, it would be natural to appeal to Kantian ideas to help
elaborate the idea that manipulation is wrong because of the way that
it treats its target. Thus, for example, Thomas E. Hill writes,

The idea that one should try to reason with others rather than to
manipulate them by nonrational techniques is manifest in Kant's
discussion of the duty to respect others. (Hill 1980: 96)

Although
Kant’s moral philosophy (see entry)
is a natural place to look for the idea that the wrongfulness of
manipulation derives from a failure to treat the target as a person,
there are potential drawbacks to tying the account too tightly to
Kant. For Kant’s notion of rational agency appears to be of the
hyper-cognitive, hyper-intellectual variety. Hence, if it is unethical
to fail to treat someone as that kind of rational agent, we
might be pushed toward the conclusion that the only acceptable basis
for human interaction is the kind of coldly intellectual rational
persuasion that excludes any appeal to emotions. But as we saw
earlier, there are good reasons for regarding such a conclusion as
implausible.

These considerations certainly do not entail that it is hopeless to
look to some notion of treating persons as things for an account of
the wrongfulness of manipulation. But they do suggest that more work
must be done before the claim that manipulation is wrong because it
treats a person as a mere thing can be regarded as much more than a
platitude.

3.5 Other Suggestions

Although harm, autonomy, and treating persons as things are the most
prominent suggestions about what makes manipulation wrong when it is
wrong, one can find other suggestions in the literature. For example,
Marcia Baron’s virtue-theoretic account of manipulativeness
suggests that we might account for what is wrong about manipulation in
terms of the character of the manipulator (Baron 2003). Patricia
Greenspan suggests that when manipulation is immoral, it is because it
violates the terms of the relationship between the manipulator and his
target—terms that will vary according to the nature of the
relationship between them (Greenspan 2003). Such a view
suggests—plausibly—that the moral status of a given
instance of manipulation will depend at least in part on the nature of
the relationship between the influencer and the target of the
influence.

4. Further Issues

In addition to answering the identification and evaluation questions, a
complete theory of manipulation should address several further issues.

4.1 Manipulating Persons versus Manipulating Situations

Discussions of manipulation often distinguish between cases where the
manipulator influences his target directly, and cases where the
manipulator influences the target’s behavior by arranging the
target’s environment in ways that induce her to act one way
rather than another. Consider Joel Rudinow’s example of a
malingerer who manipulates a psychiatrist into admitting him to the
psychiatric ward (Rudinow 1978). He does this by fooling a police
officer into thinking he is about to commit suicide. The police
officer brings him to the ward, reports that he is suicidal, and
requests that he be admitted. Although the psychiatrist is not fooled,
her hospital’s rules force her to admit the malingerer at the
police officer’s request. It seems clear that the malingerer has
manipulated the police officer by tricking him into adopting a faulty
belief. But the psychiatrist, while not falling for the feigned
suicide attempt and thus not adopting any faulty beliefs, is
nevertheless induced to do what she did not want to do. Although it
seems correct to say that the psychiatrist was manipulated, this form
of manipulation seems different from what was done to the police
officer. By feigning a suicide attempt, the malingerer has tampered
with the police officer’s beliefs. But he has maneuvered the
psychiatrist into admitting him, not by tampering with her
psychological states, but rather by “gaming the system”,
as we might say.

Attempts to articulate this distinction go back at least as far as the
sociologists Donald Warwick and Herbert Kelman’s distinction
between “environmental” and “psychic”
manipulation (Warwick & Kelman 1973), which influenced Faden,
Beauchamp, and King’s seminal philosophical account of
manipulation (Faden, Beauchamp, & King 1986: 355–68). Anne
Barnhill distinguishes between manipulation that “changes the
options available to the person or changes the situation she’s
in, and thereby changes her attitudes” on the one hand, and
manipulation that “changes a person’s attitudes directly
without changing the options available to her or the surrounding
situation” on the other (Barnhill 2014: 53). Drawing a similar
distinction, Claudia Mills writes

If A wants to get B to do act x, there are two general
strategies that A might undertake. A might change, or
propose to change, the external or objective features of
B’s choice situation; or alternatively, A might
try to alter certain internal or subjective features of
B’s choice situation. While some writers might call both
strategies manipulative, at least in certain circumstances, I prefer
to reserve the label manipulation for a subset of morally
problematic actions falling in the second category. (Mills 1995:
97)

Although Rudinow’s case provides a clear contrast between what
we might call psychological manipulation and situational manipulation,
this distinction—or at least its importance—is not always
so clear. Consider
tactic 9
above, where Irving threatens to withdraw his friendship if Tonya does
not do as Irving wishes. Is this direct psychological manipulation, or
situational manipulation? The criterion offered by Barnhill and others
counts it as situational manipulation, since Irving changes
Tonya’s choice situation so that doing Y and retaining
Irving’s friendship is no longer an option. But how is this
tactic any less of a direct interference with Tonya’s decision
than if Irving had engaged in some form of deception? Why would it be
more like what the malingerer does to the police officer than what he
does to the psychiatrist?

This is not to deny that there is a difference between psychological
and situational manipulation. Instead, it is to ask what that
difference is, and why it might matter. Presumably, the distinction is
meant to differentiate between tactics that affect a target’s
behavior by directly tampering with her psychology and those that do
not. But if this is the distinction, then it seems plausible to think
that Irving’s use of emotional blackmail is at least as direct a
tampering with Tonya’s psychology as, say, Iago’s dropping
of the handkerchief in a location where it will trick Othello into
becoming inappropriately suspicious. Yet criteria like those proposed
by Mills and Barnhill seem to imply that these two forms of
manipulation are on opposite sides of that distinction.

Nevertheless, there does seem something importantly different between
what the malingerer in Rudinow’s example does to the police
officer and what he does to the psychiatrist. But much work remains to
be done to provide a well-motivated account of that difference. Such
an account should not only get the intuitively right answers in cases
of direct pressure (like emotional blackmail) and indirect deception
(like Iago’s dropping the handkerchief), but it should also
explain whether and why the distinction makes a moral difference.

4.2 Unintentional Manipulation

Some views of manipulation seem to require that manipulators have
fairly complex intentions—such as the intention to lead the
target astray—for manipulation to be present. Marcia Baron and
Kate Manne offer compelling reasons to think that such requirements
are too strong. Baron argues that manipulation can occur even if the
manipulator only has

a combination of intent and recklessness: the aim of getting the other
person do what one wants, together with recklessness in the way that
one goes about reaching that goal. (Baron 2014: 103)

Manne suggests that even this condition is too strong, and that
manipulation can occur even if the manipulator lacks any conscious
intention to change the target’s behavior. Manne offers the
example of Joan, who gives extravagant gifts to relatives who pay her
less attention than (she thinks) they should (Manne 2014). Manne tells
Joan’s story in such a way that it seems plausible to say both
that Joan’s gift-giving is a manipulative attempt to make her
relatives feel guilty, and that Joan does not consciously intend to
make her relatives feel guilty. If Manne’s description of her
example is correct, then it seems that Joan can manipulate her
relatives into feeling guilty without having any conscious intention
of making them feel guilty. Of course, those who hold that
manipulation requires more conscious intention than Manne allows might
well balk at her description of the case of Joan. Nevertheless, the
arguments offered by Baron and Manne raise important questions about
the level of conscious intentionality required for an action to be
manipulative.

The question of what sort of intention is required for an act to count
as manipulative has practical implications for assessing the behavior
of children, who sometimes behave in ways that seem aptly described as
manipulative even when they are too young to have the complicated
intentions that some theories of manipulation might require. Similar
worries arise for assessing the behavior of people for whom
manipulativeness has become a habit, or a part of their personalities.
Indeed, certain personality disorders—such as borderline
personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder—are
often characterized by manipulativeness, as is the so-called
Machiavellian personality type (Christie & Geis 1970). As
professor of psychiatric nursing Len Bowers writes,

the manipulative behaviour of some personality-disordered (PD)
patients is consistent and frequent. It is an integral part of their
interpersonal style, a part of the very disorder itself. (Bowers 2003:
329; see also Potter 2006)

In such cases, one wonders what level of intentionality lies behind
behavior that we would otherwise think of as manipulative. Even if we
are inclined to regard childhood or certain personality disorders as
factors that mitigate the blameworthiness of manipulative behavior, it
would seem counterintuitive for a theory of manipulation to say that
children and persons with personality disorders are incapable of
acting manipulatively.

4.3 Manipulation, Vulnerability, and Oppression

The idea that manipulation can be a tool for the powerful to oppress
the less powerful is not new, even if the term
“manipulation” has not always been used to express it.
Marxian notions of ideology and false consciousness as mechanisms that
facilitate the exploitation of workers by capital clearly resemble the
concept of manipulation as it is being used here. (Allen Wood explores
some of these connections in Wood 2014.) More recently, the concept of
“gas lighting” has become a common feature of feminist
theorizing about how the patriarchy manipulates women into doubting
their own judgments about reality. On a smaller scale, a bevy of
self-help books focus on how manipulative tactics can be used to
create and maintain subordination within relationships (Braiker 2004;
Simon 2010; Kole 2016).

A relative lack of socio-political power is almost certainly one
source of vulnerability to manipulation. But there are likely others
as well. The trickery model of manipulation
suggests—plausibly—that people who are less intellectually
sophisticated are especially vulnerable to trickery and therefore to
manipulation. The pressure model suggests that financial, social, and
emotional desperation may make one especially vulnerable to pressures
created by threats to worsen an already tenuous situation. Moreover,
some forms of manipulation, like so-called “negging”
(tactic 6) and gaslighting
(tactic 8)
may work to increase the target’s vulnerability to further
manipulation.

However, it may also be true that manipulation is a tempting tool for
use by the vulnerable against the powerful. As Patricia Greenspan
notes,

manipulation is often recommended as a strategy particularly for
women, or simply is treated as characteristic of women, at least in a
world where women cannot act openly to achieve their ends. A further
argument for manipulation in these cases appeal to the limits on what
is possible in a position of subordination. (Greenspan 2003: 156)

Similarly, Len Bowers observes that

it is possible to interpret manipulation as a normal response to
incarceration, rather than as being a pathological style of behavior,

and that

manipulative strategies may be viewed as a low-key way of fighting
back at a system which has deprived the prisoner of normal freedom.
(Bowers 2003: 330)

Finally, it seems likely that one reason why children often resort to
manipulative tactics is that they often lack any other (or any other
equally effective) way to get what they want.

It is also worth noting that the idea that the idea that manipulation
undermines autonomous choice might be used, somewhat paradoxically, to
undermine autonomous choice, especially among the non-elite. This
point is comes out forcefully in a comment by Sarah Skwire (2015,
Other Internet Resources) on George Akerlof and Robert Shiller’s
book, Phishing for Phools (Akerlof & Shiller
2015). Akerlof and Shiller discuss a number of advertising, sales, and
marketing practices that they deem manipulative. The problem that
Skwire notes is that the reason for calling these practices
manipulative is that consumers make choices that Akerlof and Shiller
think are sufficiently irrational that they would only be made under
the influence of manipulation. Skwire writes that this approach to
detecting manipulation demonstrates “contempt for the decisions
made by people who are poorer and from a lower social class than the
authors” (Skwire 2015, Other Internet Resources). In short, she
suggests that Akerlof and Shiller are too quick to suspect
manipulation in cases where people make different decisions from the
ones they think best. Whether or not we agree with Skwire’s
criticisms of Akerlof and Shiller, her point serves as a cautionary
one: Even if we accept that manipulation undermines autonomous choice,
we must be careful not to use that as a reason to suspect that people
who make different choices from what we think are best must therefore
be victims of manipulation. It would be ironic—and
unjust—to use the idea that manipulation is a wrongful
interference with autonomy as a weapon to delegitimize the autonomous
choices of people with whom we disagree or whose situations, needs,
and values we do not understand.